Sunday, June 09, 2019

Boston Underground Film Festival 2019.04: Bucket of Truth, Nightshifter, Knife+Heart, and A Hole in the Ground

You know what the best part of being behind on your blogging is? Trying to write up 14 short films with an average length of 7-ish minutes a month and a half later. You can either zip through it or make yourself absolutely crazy!



Obviously, I went for making myself crazy.

So, left to right, I believe we've got Adam Murphy, an animator on "A Chest of Drawers"; Joe Donovan (music), JB Sapienza (Producer) and Jim McDonough (writer/director) from "I Owe You One Banana and Two Black Eyes"; Alex & Peter, part of the team that made the bumper that played before every feature; Brian Petillo, who directed "Shake It Off"; someone whom my notes only say "Glen - ed", probably from "The Odd Sea" with its director Porcelain Dalya; Brett McCabe, who gave us "The Cuckoldress"; Stuart Roelke, director of "Fauxmote"; "In Love" filmmaker Candice Nachman; and finally "Falcon & Hawke", respectively writer/director Dane Benton and Paul Wilson. That's a lot, and I apologize for anyone whom I short-changed with my crappy notes!

It was a solid night of horror after that - even the stuff I didn't love was pretty solid, and how do you not smile a bit at how, after playing one of director Yann Gonzalez's music videos before his movie, there's a title card announcing Knife+Heart, "aka the queer slasher fim you came to see". I'm not sure what the reason for A Hole in the Ground being a secret screening was unless it's some weird contractual thing, like DirectTV doesn't want any of the movies that are part of their deal with A24 advertised as playing in theaters in any way.

"I Owe You One Banana and Two Black Eyes"

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

First up, a short that makes me wonder if maybe I hadn't skpped the wrong block and was going to see the music videos. Probably not, because the song itself is pretty goofy, which describes the film, in which a couple of bunny puppets are lip-syncing while racing to outrun various predators, with the whole thing eventually becoming a crazy, over-the-top car chase. It's the sort of animation where you can't quite see the strings but never entertain the possibility that there might not be any there.

It's fairly funny, especially if you like a certain flavor of finger-raising bloody cartoon violence. Jim McDonough and his team aren't bad at escalating the insanity from a pretty nutty start at all, and do a fine job of hitting peak over-the-top right when the music says they should.

"In Love"

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

A whole two minutes long, but two minutes that offer a specific sort of pure delight of filmmaking, as director Candice Nachman shoots on Super-8 and does her effects and jumps and "cutting" in-camera, just like a bunch of filmmakers did when they started and all they had was the camera and there was no cutting/scanning/post-production you could do. It's kind of like getting a poem someone wrote out with a fountain pen, ink drops, occasional bad penmanship, and all.

Given those restrictions, it's kind of straight-ahead in its literalization of the whole "giving you my heart" thing, but effective for it. It's not necessarily better or more sincere than the similar scene Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron played with in Alita: Battle Angel, but the sheer earnestness of it can't help but add a certain amount of charm.

"Fuzzite Fighters"

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

Kids fighting monsters is almost always a good time, especially when done with the sort of sincerity Jenna Tooley and her young cast bring to "Fuzzite Fighters". As much as it spends a bit of time taking a step back and having a giggle at the little kids swinging hockey sticks at monsters only they can see through their dorky goggles, protected by cardboard armor. It walks in the general direction of being cutesy in regard to those kids and their crazy imaginations (and the mean ones who won't just let them have their fun), but never quite crosses that line where it's about making the audience feel good that they like watching kids imagine.

The delight comes in large part from Tooley et al taking the kids' mission seriously, even as they menace Emma and James with monsters that looks more like sports mascots than aliens. The action is crisply shot and cut to excite, and even if that's a joke, it's one that has to be done well to work. The kids feel genuine, especially the young actress playing Emma, who does a nice job of playing the kid who chooses adventure when given the chance.

"The Odd Sea"

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

There are some good gags in "The Odd Sea", enough that I'd kind of like to see director Porcelain Dalya do this sort of behind-the-scenes comedy about a documentary crew without the whole bit where the filmmakers' subject is Odysseus re-imagined as a contemporary painter, because that's almost always just a little too cutesy, with each dropped reference to The Odyssey more a reminder of how it doesn't fit than a play on how it unexpectedly does. Moving an epic fantasy about a journey into a static, mundane setting in this case makes it harder for Dalya to use what's fun about either in any way that feels natural. It careens between frantic and stretched as a result.

It's a fun group she's put together, and there are a few great moments where she's able to do a thing and wink at it simultaneously, such as coming up with a more varied group of siren body types than is typical. Big laughs and big whiffs is probably better than just getting by without a reaction, even if I wish the proportions were a little different.

"B's Hole"

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

For a couple of years, BUFF programmed a whole program of shorts about ignorant young twerps, and this would have fit right in. It's maybe a little more sympathetic in some respects - director Peter Levine and his cast play the speakeasy-seeking hipsters as earnest in their desire for cool new experiences even if they haven't done anything close to the proper research, while the guy who takes advantage of their naivete eventually finds little joy in it. There's probably a lesson here about how trying to get a laugh out of samming these guys can turn sour when they don't realize that they're supposed to be suffering, although it's one that the short seems to stumble on rather than assert.

"Flower"

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

The description of the short on BUFF's website - "a zombie finds a flower that brings her to the threshold of consciousness—only to be dispatched by a heartless survivor" - is awful close to the whole film, as is sometimes the case when you're looking at something five minutes long that asks the viewer to take a moment and let what's happening wash over them. There's not a whole lot of room for twisting.

Kik Udomprasert and company manage some nice craft, though, from the way the purple flower stands out from the background to quality make-up and gore. In a movie without much if anything in the way of words, it can be tricky to manage the difference between disaffection and contentment, but that's a problem that the film never has. It's simple, but nevertheless kind of satisfying.

"El Amo de Cuchillo"

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

Rodrigo González's short is one of the longer ones in the package, and one can't help but feel that length; the point is kind of that it stretches out so that it can wrap up shockingly quickly; it either ends with "that's it?" or the viewer amused at how impressively the film turned the tables on them.

In this case, it never quite seems to fit together; there's a whole bunch of flashbacks and history that seems like it's meant to be just heightened enough that the audience recognizes the parody but there doesn't seem to be quite enough tension between this chef at home in his well-appointed kitchen practicing his knife work and his job at a family pizza kitchen. The film kind of meanders when it could be building, never quite random but never quite having all of the comedic/dramatic purpose it really needs to make the finale work.

"Happy Ending"

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

There are a few shorts in this block playing off movie tropes, with this one actually building its jokes off "if this was a movie…" It's kind of an easy sort of gag repeated a few times, but Fernando González Gómez has a couple of game actors to play it, even if the whole thing does come off as just a bit more self-aware than laugh-out-loud funny at times.

"Shake It Off"

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

If not quite the best short in the comedy block, "Shake It Off" is probably the most cheerily peculiar and well-placed, dipping into a well of weirdness that makes the audience squirm a bit but doesn't judge all that much; it recognizes and embraces the fetish at the center without scolding either the girl who likes to watch guys pee or the guys who are kind of uncomfortable but are trying not to be because it's basically harmless, right?

Director Brian Petillo and his cast do a nice job of keeping it fun, especially the actress playing Megan, who has to come off as casual but not entirely disconnected or oblivious. Her understated sense of fun paris well with how co-star gets tied up in knots. The whole thing gets extended just long enough to be uncomfortable but not torture, and there's just enough table-turning on who is getting a kick out of looking at who to add a pinch of satire without ever really getting close to lecture.

"Falcon & Hawke: Space Race, Episode 4"

* ½ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

There's apparently more of this, which is kind of terrifying, because this twelve minutes is already overstuffed with weak point-and-laugh parody that feels desperate to extend itself every minute or so because there actually isn't that much material to be mined from the last crazy, over-the-top thing that they just did. Or at least, that's not the way they're going to go. They're just going to mash-up goofy Eighties cop shows with cheap Eighties space opera and try to get laughs out of how deliberately tacky the result is, even if intentional camp pretty much never works.

It's the sort of short film that can wreck a package - once this is starting to feel drawn out and just unwilling to wrap things up, it's a short jump to feeling like the whole block is past the point of pain. This is the loud bore who corners you and makes you want to leave the party even if you haven't had a chance to see your old friend yet.

"Fauxmote"

* * * (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

"Fauxmote" is a cute sort of one-joke movie where the filmmakers never quite manage to build a story around that joke but tell it well enough that they can get away with doing it ten or twelve times in seven minutes. There's really no part of this guy wearing a big, clunky, difficult-to-operate thing that displays emoticons on his head that actually makes sense, but director Stuart Roelke manages some terrific timing and finds a tough-to-achieve balance of characters accepting it like it's a thing that people might do and recognizing it as pretty stupid.

The Fauxmote itself helps in that it's not quite a brilliantly designed prop but it's one that kind of works, like it's been crowdfunded and doesn't quite have to be a seamless part of a consistent world, but it's not too far out there. A little bit more slick or fourth-wall-breakingly amateurish, and the whole thing might not work.

"The Cuckoldress"

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

Got nothing; sometimes they just flee your brain.

"A Chest of Drawers"

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

I recall this particular "got nothing" as a bit more ambitious, but still kind of wobbly.

"Chowboys: An American Folktale"

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival: Bucket of Truth, digital)

Supposedly this is the last official Astron-6 project, although its members will probably work together again in some configuration later. If so, they go out in fitting style, with a bloody but very funny movie that shows more filmmaking chops than the work of a great many people who appear to take the work much more seriously.

That's impressive, because this one is screwy for them, with a group of cowboys sitting around the campfire, trading stories, talking about how they got into this situation, and casually revealing that things are a lot more dire and absurd than initially seems to be the case. The script is all over the place, but unlike a lot of movies that pull randomly-connected things together like that (I'm talking to you, four shorts ago!), this team builds the insanity up just enough that the audience is always ready to take that sharp left turn with the movie rather than skid off the road. The movie plays kind of like a stream-of-consciousness thing, but that was probably the first draft; it's been refined to work since then.

I think a big part of what makes this and most of their better projects work is that they respect the genres their playing with ad have figured out what makes them work (to the extent that I'd often rather see them try playing something straight). Here, for instance, they recognize that campfire scenes are often funny already, so if you're going to spoof or twist them, there's got to be some give-and-take: The more ridiculous topics of conversation may require the acting to be a little more deadpan, or shooting style built around shooting the outdoors on a soundstage may call for a little extra detail.

Anyway, I hope these guys are able to do even more entertaining genre projects now than they could before. They do the sort of thing that tends to attract amateurs who think they know a lot more than they do, but they do it like pros.

Morto Não Fala (Nightshifter)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival, DCP)

I suppose that once a person finds out that they can converse with corpses, their career is pretty much set - it would be a heck of a waste to be able to do that and work anywhere but the city morgue. From there, it's a matter of whether you think you're on an American TV show or not - if you are, the obvious next step is to start solving murders; otherwise, you may wind up on the sort of path Stênio does here, which is more nastily entertaining than the procedural approach.

There's enough crime in Sao Paolo that Stênio (Daniel de Oliveira) will find himself conversing with people who died in pretty gnarly fashion, and not only is it taking its toll, but the job doesn't even pay enough for a beer at the local cafe after work. It's making things strained with wife Odete (Fabiula Nascimento), and when he finds out that she is having an affair with Jaime (Marco Ricca), the cafe's owner, it's enough for him to finally make some use of his ability, using what he learned from a dead gangster to convincing his boss that Jaime got the man killed, counting on them to exact his revenge. It seems like a slick plan, but it turns out that telling the dead's secrets marks a sman, and soon gangsters who realize that the tale doesn't quite add up may be the least of Stênio's problems.

Stênio brings a lot of what's coming upon himself - he is not some stupid teenager messing around with things he's got no reason to expect are actually dangerous - and the filmmakers do a nifty job of offering no excuses while still giving the audience reason to care beyond just how the blowback from his actions may hit the decent people around him, whether his kids or Jaime's daughter Lara (Bianca Comparato). Everyone in this movie is stressed or frustrated in some way, and when Stênio crosses that line to make Jaime a target, the audience recoils, but can recognize the desire to lash out at that point. Stênio is not exactly a good person who has a moment of weakness - his bickering with Odete is petty on both sides and he's as selfish as anyone else - but he hasn't exactly been looking for an excuse. He's just too close to the darkness.

Full review on EFilmCritic

"Les Vacances Continuent"

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival, DCP)

Sometimes music videos like this look a little amateurish and homemade and it's not entirely a bad thing even if you do snicker a bit; and it's kind of about expectations - the viewer processes it as a stream of consciousness inspired by the song, and lets it have bits that need to be filled in or which don't add up, even if there's also clearly enough planning for flashbacks and the like, even if you strongly suspect that a song whose title translates to "Vacation Continues" doesn't really have much to do with a woman getting murderous revenge.

So, sure, this one was kind of silly in spots even as it's also just insanely bloody. The tune is catchy enough even if your French is as terrible as mine, and the sheer enthusiasm of it plays, especially when it allows the video to do the quick reversals necessary in order to cram everything into three and a half minutes.

Un couteau dans le coeur (Knife+Heart)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival, DCP)

Knife+Heart is a slasher set against a backdrop of gay porn in 1979 Paris and it's just as lurid as it sounds, which means it is not for everyone. It is top-notch as those go, clever and sometimes surprisingly emotional considering that it's also often well over the border of camp. There isn't much like it, and most of what is doesn't pull it off nearly so well.

Anne Parèze (Vanessa Paradis) is kind of a mess; she produces cheap adult films with all-male casts and has screwed up enough of that girlfriend Loïs McKenna (Kate Moran) has left her, although she's still editing those movies. Director Archibald Langevin (Nicolas Maury) is not the only one to notice that new actor Nans (Khaled Alouach) looks an awful lot like another guy, Fouad, who did few films with them a few years ago. He might not be in the business very long, or on this Earth - there's a serial killer on the loose, and the police are not exactly prioritizing the case. That means Anne winds up playing amateur sleuth on top of everything else, which includes making her new movie transparently based upon the case.

Vanessa Paradis seems like a bit of an odd choice for the central character of this movie, even once you consider that many of the characters are inspired by real people; she's a glamorous former model and singer whose character is in a grimy, low-rent business. She imbues Anne with a sense of ease and experience but not necessarily responsibility, someone who has found her niche in part because it lets her occasionally be immature without much penalty in the right proportion with any den-mother instincts she might feel. It's a natural fit with Kate Moran's Loïs, who never comes off as quite so at ease with this world - sure, nobody has anything against her being gay, and Anne is smart and exciting, but even before the murders, the excesses that came from being around Anne were not exactly what she wanted out of life. She does the editing because someone has to and she's the only one with the temperment for this methodical part of filmmaking.

Full review on EFilmCritic

The Hole in the Ground

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 23 March 2019 at the Brattle Theatre (Boston Underground Film Festival, DCP)

Consume enough fantasy and horror, or get enough of a feel for various sorts of mythology, and you will start to recognize various things to the point where you maybe want a little more, even if a story is a decent example of what it is. The Hole in the Ground is like that: It's a perfectly fine little movie drawn from Irish folklore, and as soon as the specific bit of mythology is clear, the viewer will say "ah, it's about those", let it play out, and then maybe recall it when someone asks for movies about changelings but not come back to it that often otherwise.

It opens with Sarah O'Neill (Seána Kerslake) and her son Chris (James Quinn Markey) moving into an old house in need of some work on the outskirts of a small Irish village, the sort that comes complete with a weird old lady (Kati Outinert) who wanders out into the middle of the street saying foreboding things, and has ever since some sort of childhood trauma. Chris is sullen, not understanding why they're making this move and why his father isn't coming with them, though people who notice certain types of scars and bandages on Sarah will get it. While walking in the woods, they discover a huge sinkhole, and though Sarah says to stay away, kids do get curious in the middle of the night, sometimes having a curious change of behavior afterward.

Director and co-writer Lee Cronin tends to keep the film closely centered on Sarah and Chris, and that's by no means a bad way to go. They're a well-cast pair that can certainly carry the weight of a small film like this, with James Quinn Markey doing quite all right as both the disappointed version of Chris and the one that seems somewhat off; it's not necessarily meant to be a subtle difference, but it is one that doesn't immediately make Sarah look like a fool when she doesn't pick up on it. Seána Kerslake is impressive as well; there's the tiniest hint of her trying to make herself feel enthused about working on the house herself as the film starts, and nice alarm and self-doubt as she starts to wonder about Chris. She's seldom flashy, but she's convincing in a lot of little ways, so she and the filmmakers are able to fill a fair amount of who Sarah is in without a lot of obvious effort.

Full review on EFilmCritic

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